"Yes—why not?"
"Do you know that he is on the verge of complete financial ruin?"
"What does that matter? I can—I can bear anything—give up anything—"
"You have the woman's—the good woman's—indifference about money. Do you talk to him about it?"
"No. We get on at once to the causes of trouble—this unrighteous war—that I can't stand."
"Ah, Mrs. Penhallow, there must be in the North and South many families divided in opinion; what do you suppose they do? This absolute silence is fatal. You two are drifting apart—"
"Oh, not that! Surely not that!"
"Yes! The man is worried past endurance. If he really were to fall ill—a serious typhoid, for instance, the South and your brother and John, everything would be forgotten—there would be only James Penhallow. It would be better to talk of the war—to quarrel over it—to make him talk business—oh, anything rather than to live as you are living. He is not ill. Go home and comfort him. He needs it. He has become a lonely man, and it is your fault. He was here to-day in the utmost distress about you—"
"About me?"
"Yes."